CHAPTER X 

 CLIMBING PLANTS 



THE vine has served rhetoricians ever since the 

 Dark Ages as a type of clinging helplessness aad 

 utter dependence. It has symbolized the condi- 

 tion of woman under the old regime, before she 

 entered the learned professions and the business 

 world, donned short skirts, mounted the bicycle, and 

 wrote herself down Woman. Therefore, we learn, 

 with some surprise, that the vine, like many a 

 woman in unreconstructed societies, is only appar- 

 ently relieved of the burdens of existence, and 

 that it works as hard for its living as the "sturdy 

 oak," to which it clings. 



The charitable soul is now and then defrauded 

 by a ne'er-do-well, who puts into his schemes 

 for the avoidance of work an amount of astuteness, 

 adroitness, and energy which would win success in 

 some legitimate field of labor. 



Vines, when one studies their habits, are some- 



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